THE PENDULUM
Eton, North Carolina • Wednesday, February 26, 2014 • Volume 40, Edition 5
www.elonpenduium.com
HOPE feeds the hungry
CAROLINE OLNEYI Photo Editor
Barbara Davis and other community members volunteer at the Allied Churches of Alamance County, which receives support from Elon’s HOPE organization.
Elon sophomores establish charity to benefit localfood pantries
Morgan Abate
Senior Reporter
A student-led nonprofit founded by Elon
University students to raise funds for needy
food pantries will serve its first meals in Ala
mance County through four local restaurants
March 7.
Co-founder and sophomore Jensen Roll
worked with food pantries and homeless shel
ters before coming to Elon. He noticed these
pantries ran out of food quickly, did not have
enough volunteers and lacked funds for facili
ties and incidentals. His observations prompt
ed him to take action and find a solution:
Helping Other People Eat (HOPE).
Starting this coming Fellows Weekend,
HOPE and its “HOPE-certified” partner
restaurants wiU give customers the option to
round their bills to the next dollar or to add
a custom donation. The funds raised wiU be
distributed by HOPE to local food pantries.
The organization scheduled its debut
around FeUows Weekend because of its po
tential to reach prospective students and to
show their families how Elon engages with
the local community.
The first pantry to benefit from HOPE
is Allied Churches of Alamance County
(ACAC), which serves 300 to 400 people
daily.
“The opportunity is there,” RoU said. “The
need is there.”
ACAC is dedicated to helping the impov
erished by providing shelter and food for in
dividuals and famiUes, among other services.
But since Loaves and Fishes, the county’s
only food pantry, suddenly closed in August,
ACAC has struggled a great deal.
In September of last year, a month after
Loaves and Fishes closed, ACAC opened a
new food pantry. The addition of the unex
pected program put an extra burden on the
organization. ACAC slowly sUpped into debt
for a few months after starting the program.
Despite these recent hardships. Executive
See CHARITY page 3
2014-2015 Elon
tuition to increase
Michael Bodley and Stephanie Lamm
News Editor and Assistant News Editor
With the passing of the 2014-2015 fiscal
budget, Elon University reaffirmed its com
mitment to a slow growth model, increasing
tuition by 3.69 percent and bringing the total
cost of an Elon education to $41,914 per year
for students living on campus. Students living
off campus can expect to pay $30,848.
Gerald Whittington, senior vice president
for business, finance and technology, said part
of the problem is the university’s endowment,
currently valued at $183 million. Though the
university plans to triple it by 2020, the funds
stUl pale in comparison to schools such as the
University of Richmond — one of Elon’s
main competitors — which boasts an endow
ment valued at just over $2 billion.
“There are certainly some challenges to
being a tuition-dependent institution,” Whit
tington said. “If you’re growing slowly instead
of really fast, you can get a double effect of cov
ering the cost of education because you grew
some and the tuition rate went up some.”
Whittington said a 4 percent increase is a
“line in the sand” that media oudets have pub
licized as being too much. Over the last four
years, Elon has kept its tuition increases below
the line.
But Gabriel Noble, a senior who was almost
unable to graduate due to cost, asked when the
university should stop expanding and settle for
what is here now: a “perfect campus.” Thanks
to a Change.org petition. Noble will graduate
this spring through donor contributions and
grants.
“I know they have to raise the tuition for
everything they’re adding on,” he said. “When
I got here, Elon was enough for me to be hap
py for my whole four years. At what point does
the administration decide we’re good — we
See TUITION page 4